Rajam Krishnan is a feminist Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

 writer from Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.

Biography

Rajam Krishnan was born in Musiri

Musiri

Musiri is a panchayat town in Tiruchirappalli district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Musiri is located at . It has an average elevation of 82 metres . It is the site of an ancient inland port on the Kaveri River also called Pseudostomus or 'one with false mouths'.-Demographics: India...

, Tiruchirapalli district. She started publishing in her twenties. She is known for writing well researched social novels on the lives of people usually not depicted in modern Tamil literature - poor farmers, salt pan workers, small time criminals, jungle dacoits, under-trial prisoners and female labourers. She has written more than 80 novels. In 1973, she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award

Sahitya Akademi Award

Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...

 for Tamil for her novel Verukku Neer. In 2009, her works were nationalised by the Government of Tamil Nadu

Government of Tamil Nadu

The Government of Tamil Nadu, headquartered at Chennai is the governing authority for the Indian State of Tamil Nadu. It is seated at the Fort St. George...

, for a compensation of three lakh Rupees. It was a rare occurrence as only works of dead writers are usually nationalised in Tamil Nadu.

Partial bibliography

• Uthara Kaandam
• Kurinji Then
• Valaikaram
• Verukku Neer
• Malargal
• Mullum Malarndhadhu
• Paadaiyil Padinda Adigal
• Alaivaai Karayile
• Karippu Manigal
• Mannakattu puntulikal
• Sathiya Velvi

Awards and recognitions

• New York Herald Tribune
  New York Herald Tribune
  The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
  
   International Award for a short story (1950)
• Kalaimagal award (1953)
• Sahitya Akademi Award
  Sahitya Akademi Award
  Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...
  
   for Tamil for his novel Verukku Neer (1973)
• Thiru. Vi. Ka award (1991)

External links

• Library of Congress page for Rajam Krishnan